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Sunday, March 29, 2015

Sew Fitted Cool!

When my husband and I decided to cloth diaper I looked at every aspect in order to see how to start with as less money as possible. We were given 5 Thirsties size 1 covers, and I had some prefolds and flour sack towels. I learned about fitted being a great option for night time for heavy wetters, because my little 8 week old baby could pee an ocean at night. To cut down the cost I decided to try and make a couple out of things around the house. I got my little sewing machine (lil’ sew and sew), a t-shirt, and some elastic I had left over from making a dress for my four year old. I made a rough sketch of my cover and went from there. My little machine did NOT like that much fabric! It was skipping stitches and the foot was slipping. I asked my sister (who is a seamstress) why it would do that with t-shirts and she had told me that I needed a ballpoint needle, lesson #1 learned. At the time I didn’t have any snaps or Velcro so I just made a snap-less fitted and used a snappi to secure it. I had such a success with the first and had a couple of women ask if I could show them how. What better way to help the women who have helped me so much then to write for the cloth diaper whisperer!

So here’s how to make a fitted diaper (I am making a one-size, you can make a sized) from things around the house!

What you need:

A diaper pattern (you can find them online for free)

A T-Shirt

Towel

Flannel (You could also just use another layer of the t-shirt if you make a sized diaper)

Ballpoint Needle for your sewing machine

¼ inch braided elastic

Scissors

Pins

Optional (Snaps or Hook and Look)

So the first thing you do is find a t-shirt, and fold it half and pin the pattern to it (you’ll have 2 layers for your diaper cut).

Cut the same pattern with the flannel.

You then will want to take the sleeves off of the cut shirt and open them up (you’ll be making them layers for the snap in soaker)

Layer the sleeves on the rest of the material left from the t-shirt and cut a long rectangle out of the layers (it’s easier to do with a rotary cutter or just pin the layers and cut with scissors)

Cut the same rectangle out of a double layer of towel (this will be the sewn in soaker). So total you will have 6 layers of t-shirt soaker, 2 layers of sewn in towel soaker, 2 layers of t-shirt for the diaper, and 1 layer of flannel for the diaper.

Sew the towel layers together (so they stay put when sewing to the layer of flannel), and then pin that to the wrong side of the flannel piece.

The next step is to either put snaps or hook and loop, on for securing on the two layers of t-shirt.

Then pin the RIGHT side of the t-shirt layers to the RIGHT side of the flannel layer, sew around leaving an opening at the top for turning.

You will then want to tack on the leg elastics and back elastics(leg elastics cut to 5 inches back elastic cut to 5 ½ inches).

Turn the diaper through that hole. You will then top stitch around and make leg casings and back casings for the elastics. (The second picture shows sewing a leg casing)

Here is the finished and turned and top stitched diaper, you will then want to add on the wings for securing and two snaps on the inside for the snap in soaker.

To make the snap-in soaker, sew around 3 of the edges of the rectangle of t-shirt layers. Trim the edge so it’s not bulky. Turn and top stitch that and seal it up.

Add snaps to your snap-in soaker and you are done! You can even just do sized diapers with no snaps for a snapless fitted like the one I made for my daughter (using a t-shirt, flannel and a flour sack towel as a sewn in soaker!) If you have any questions please feel free to email me! Happy fluffiness and have FUN!

Bio: My name is Teal; I am a mother of two beautiful little girls (four-year-old and 5 month old). I cloth diaper, I’m crafty, and I like trying different things to help my family.

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